NASCAR

A victory in the 2010 Brickyard 400 was quite an accomplishment in itself for Jamie McMurray. Except that he also won the Daytona 500, not to mention the Bank of America 500 at Charlotte.

Yet, in spite of victories in NASCAR's two most prestigious races, McMurray, 35, failed to make the Chase for the Sprint Cup. Though the Joplin, Mo., native has won six Sprint Cup races in his career, he has never finished a season in the top 10 of the point standings.

Childress is the last vestige — full-time, anyway — of old school in NASCAR team ownership. He and Dale Earnhardt made a perfect match. Childress interacted as easily with Bud Moore and Junior Johnson as he now does with Rick Hendrick and Roger Penske. Childress's success is grounded in the way that he manages to bridge the generations.

This stage of Kasey Kahne’s career is tumultuous almost by definition. What should be the prime of the 31-year-old’s career is a bit muddled, if only for now. Kahne left Richard Petty Motorsports near the end of last season. In 2012, he will join Hendrick Motorsports, replacing Mark Martin.

This year, though, Kahne is taking a one-year ride with Team Red Bull as a teammate of Brian Vickers.

When I first began writing about NASCAR, the track in North Wilkesboro had 60,000 seats. Then Bruton Smith and Bob Bahre carved it up as if they were diplomats playing Monopoly with conquered land, and the capacity was revealed to be 37,000. Same when International Speedway Corporation got its hands on Martinsville and alleged attendance dropped by a third even though the grandstands remained the same.

Todd Bodine is the reigning champion of the Camping World Truck Series. In the past six seasons, he has won two championships and never finished lower than fourth in the season standings.

Though he is coming off a third-place finish at Darlington Raceway on March 12, Bodine faces challenges in defending his 2010 championship. It remains a struggle to secure enough sponsorship for his Germain Racing Toyota.